"We went for a very dark, strong and sinister tone in the music, and some really hitting production on top of that. The music is exciting and serious, I think, and will give a good backdrop for the story. The juxtaposition of those two elements – fun and terror – makes for a pretty sleek package."

Additionally, Strandberg added some licensed jazz to the mix as well. "The original classical score by Mikael Karlsson works as a foundation for the war, the battlefields, the threat, and a theme for the antagonist," he says. "The characters are quite funny guys so we really needed that juxtaposition. On the other hand we also needed something 'odd' and I'm a real David Lynch fanatic and an organ aficionado so we have several themes in that style making 'the world of bad company' a bit surreal. Those jazzy 'Lynch themes' play in harmony with the characters moods whereas the score is the constant reminder of the real threat."

The surreality doesn't end there, however. Some of the in-game vehicles like jeeps allow players to switch between preset radio stations with licensed music ranging from steel guitar to classic gospel. "We needed four really strong themed radio stations that resonated with the game concept," says Strandberg. "I made a visual collage to communicate the associated values that each station had to get the design accepted. When you put them all together you immediately understand that they convey what Bad Company is about."

"The music in the vehicles is more about themes than individual tracks," he continues. "I really like the absurdity of driving a Humvee and listening to surf rock and then getting attacked and there's a 5-minute firefight and as you take down the final enemy you hear the car playing surf rock across the street. It's a really good balance to the violence that just took place. It tells you that it's fiction. I also like that we put the radio in the world, which it is actually in the car and not just a track playing on your console."

Drawing the Battle Plans

Despite the other elements, though, it's still Karlsson's original score that delivers the biggest impact in the game. Given the luxury of time due to being brought into the project so early, he and his collaborators pored over the game's script and concept art, and looked into developing a cohesive musical style to use.

"We listened to a lot of Alfred Schnittke, Gustav Mahler, the Balanescu Quartet, Bela Bartók, Dmitri Shostakovich, Diamanda Galás and even Arnold Schoenberg, while keeping our eye on the productions (not the music itself) of the likes of Daft Punk, The Knife, The Books and even Timbaland (who doesn't look at his beats these days?)," says Karlsson.

"We decided that our score should live completely inside the realms of classical music, but without the respect that's always given to the idea of a faithful 'classical' sound in classical recordings," he continues. "Sure, the orchestral cues sound like the massive symphonic pieces that they are, but for the sonic 'footprint' of this game, we chose a string quintet (1 viola, 3 celli, 1 bass) and an extremely harsh, microscopically close microphone recording technique, brilliantly executed by Silas Brown. We wanted a personal soundtrack, one that feels agile and aggressive where an orchestra at best sounds huge and intimidating. The music has to convey the extreme flexibility of a person in a war. A chamber string ensemble, without the sweetness of violins, seemed perfect as a complement to the massive orchestra."